Articles

Course Redesign: Implementing Active Learning to Enhance Student Success

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Delivering online courses is not a new paradigm in U.S. higher education. Online courses and programs play a significant role in providing opportunities for adult learners to further their education without sacrificing their work and family commitments. Because of the advancement of communication technologies, the educational landscape is undergoing a rapid transformation. Higher educational institutions must have a continuous improvement mindset to integrate emerging educational technologies and best instructional pedagogies into the curricula. Revising the course content and evaluating the updated course’s effectiveness is imperative. This paper presents a study in which a revised course in the master’s program of healthcare administration is incorporated with active learning approaches. For triangulation, a mixed-method research design is employed to collect qualitative and quantitative data from multiple sources. The results from this study confirm findings derived from prior empirical research studies. The limitations and future research are also discussed. The implications for online education instructors, instructional designers, and administrators are also presented.

An Investigation of the Effects of Technology-Enhanced Instructional Approaches on Students’ Programming Skills at New Amsterdam Secondary School

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The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of traditional instruction methods with technology-enhanced instruction methods for delivering the programming curriculum on student academic performance and attitude. This study used an experimental quantitative design. All students were Grade 11 students from the New Amsterdam Secondary School. A random sampling approach was used to choose who would be in the experimental group and the control group. Students in the experimental group were taught using technology, while those in the control group were instructed using a more conventional method. The same teacher taught both groups six lessons, and they both took a pre-and post-test for the Standardized Achievement Test. In addition, during the lessons conducted in both the experimental and controlled groups, anecdotes were recorded at random.

The results of this study showed that, despite a correlation between pre-test performance and post-test scores, post-test scores for students in the experimental group were significantly higher than those for students in the controlled group. The outcomes of the paired samples test indicate a statistically significant difference between the performance of the students in the experimental group and the controlled group, with a p-value of less than 0.05 supporting this conclusion. This study also discovered that those who participated in video-based learning had a positive outlook and were more receptive to academic materials. They were more eager, motivated, and actively engaged in the learning process than the students in the controlled group. Also, the video-based method sparked the interest of the students in the experimental group, resulting in a favorable attitude.